


Evasive Maneuvers

by pocky_slash



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Canon-typical shenanigans, Comedy of Errors, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-12
Updated: 2008-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24271099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: Will resists the urge to bang his head back against the wall. "I need to just stop answering my phone ever," he says.
Kudos: 4





	Evasive Maneuvers

Will's barely been in the office two minutes when the phone starts ringing.

Because he doesn't learn from experience, he picks it up.

"Will Bailey."

"Will, I need your help and you absolutely can't tell Josh."

Days that start with Amy Gardner, he's learning, are rarely good days.

"I really, really don't want to be involved in this," Will says. "I just got in. I have to write a speech. I have to--" He looks around his office. "...find my chair again! Dammit!"

"Yeah, all my filing cabinets were turned upside down this morning," Amy says. "They moved the handles, too, so you can guess what my eager intern is doing right now."

The guest chairs are missing too, so Will slides to the floor, pulling the phone with him.

"I have, you know, work to do today, Amy," he says. "I don't have time to run around participating in your White House shenanigans."

"Hey, CJ started that!" Amy insists. "And this isn't shenanigans, it's work, I swear."

Will has always been a sucker for women who frighten him and Amy is right at the top of the list along with CJ, Mrs. Bartlet, and his step-mother. It was Barbara who started the whole thing, with her marrying his father and the creepy eyes he was sure she had in the back of her head.

"Why don't you tell me what you need and I'll at least think about it before telling you no," he says, even though he can already tell he's going to be strong-armed into this one way or another. He picks at the carpet and glances up at the window connecting his office to Toby's. If Toby's in maybe he knows where Will's chairs are....

"The First Lady wants to meet with Marjorie Stanford today," Amy says.

"Marjorie Stanford?" Will asks. "Didn't Josh once threaten to kill her? Also, isn't she a Republican?"

"He didn't threaten to kill her, he just--" Amy lets out a small huff of frustration. "Look, it doesn't matter, the point is that even though she's a Republican, she's very moderate on social issues and the First Lady wants to meet with her on the child welfare bill. She would only agree to come if we guaranteed that Josh wouldn't be around and I'm sure that if Josh sees her there's going to be a fist fight, so I think the name of the game today is 'Keep Josh and Congresswoman Stanford As Far Apart As Possible.' In the interest of preventing a national incident, I think you're going to be playing right along with me."

Will groans. "And you're asking me because...?"

"CJ's still pissed at me because of the fish thing and Toby would probably roll his eyes or yell, and I raised a lot of money for your dead candidate who went on to win his election." Amy pauses. "Plus, I figure we're both new and should probably stick together, right?"

Will resists the urge to bang his head back against the wall. "I need to just stop answering my phone ever," he says.

"Great!" Amy says. "I'll meet you in the cafeteria in half an hour so we can plan out our strategy."

Before Will can respond, she hangs up her phone. He stares at his for a long time before hanging it up as well and getting to his feet. He might as well make some progress on finding his chairs before he has to meet Amy.

*

Keeping Josh away from Marjorie Stanford involves a lot of running around and looking stupid, apparently.

"This plan sounded better in the cafeteria," Amy muses aloud as Will leans against Donna's desk to catch his breath. He'd just sprinted halfway across the building to ask Josh a mind-numbingly stupid question about a speech he claimed he was writing in order to distract him long enough to get Congresswoman Stanford into a room with the First Lady.

Of course, the room they ended up in was the Roosevelt Room, surrounded entirely by windows and in the center of the action of the west wing, so Will didn't count that battle as a win, exactly.

"I can send him to the Hill for a little bit, but there's nothing to actually do there, so it won't keep him busy for long," Donna says. She glances up from Josh's planner and shrugs. "He's got a conference call at two, so if I send him now he should be back just in time to start that."

"I'm in on that conference call," Will says. "I can continue my streak of asking monumentally stupid questions. She should be gone by three, right?"

Amy shrugs. "I think so, but who knows."

Donna taps Josh's planner on her desk to get their attention. "Hey! I get Josh out of the building, what's in it for me?" She pouts up at both of them. After a moment, Amy turns and flashes Will an impeccably similar pout. Will sighs.

"I think I've got like, twenty bucks," he mutters, digging into his pocket for his wallet.

"Twenty bucks and one favor of unspecified magnitude and we've got a deal," Donna says. She snatches the money out of his hand before he's even through pulling it out of his wallet.

"I'm not looking forward to this favor," Will says to Amy, glaring at her over his glasses.

"JOSH!" Donna yells around the both of them.

Josh appears outside his office, eyebrows raised at Will and Amy.

"Is Donna having some sort of party that I didn't know about?" he asks. WIll and Amy look at each other.

"Yeah, we're starting the west wing book club over here," Amy says. "First up is _The Brothers Karamazov_. Five bucks for pizza and beer gets you in."

"Matt Skinner's office called," Donna says, ignoring both Amy and the way that Josh seems fixated on her and Will. "They want to move tomorrow's meeting to now."

"Really?" Josh says.

"No," Donna says, expression and voice perfectly deadpan, "I'm making it up."

"Call him back and tell him I'm on my way," Josh says. He spares one last look at Amy and Will and then disappears into his office, shaking his head. Donna picks up the phone.

"Someone's gotta walk him out to make sure he doesn't go by the Roosevelt Room," Amy says. Will holds up his hands.

"It's your turn," he says. Amy looks at Donna, but Donna is staring pointedly at the phone.

"Hi, Stacey, it's Donna Moss. Remember that favor you owe me?" she says to Matt Skinner's assistant while playing with the phone cord and not looking at Amy.

"Fine," Amy grumbles. "But you owe me."

"How did we go from you owing me about a million favors for me even _considering_ helping you out to me owing you anything?" Will asks. Amy just rolls her eyes and spins around to march into Josh's office, shouting something about needing to talk to him and giving Will the finger.

*

Another twenty bucks, borrowed from Elsie with a promise to pay her back with interest, buys Donna's help in walking Josh from the front back to his office, taking a weird backwards route that managed to allow Josh to drop something off in Leo's office and get back to his own without actually passing the Roosevelt Room. Will stays crouched behind Donna's desk with Amy until Josh returns for the conference call, which means he has to sprint back to his own office to join the same call, panting pathetically into the phone as he tries to get Toby, Josh, two senators' aides, and two junior congressmen up to speed on their ideas for the new clean water bill.

"Running a marathon there, Will?" Josh asks.

"Something like that," Will mutters, and spends the first half of the call imagining new and exciting ways to kill Amy. The second half of the call is filled with stupid, awkward questions and hesitations. He asks Congressman Perry to repeat something twice and leaves long pauses between his own sentences. Toby starts banging on the window between their offices and gesturing angrily, but WIll's eyes remain on the clock. At ten of three he can't take it any more and finally lets the call die. Like it's not bad enough that he's still being hazed at the White House, now half the Hill is going to think he's an idiot.

After the call, Toby storms into his office looking both bewildered and furious.

"What the hell was that?!" he demands. Will can only shrug sheepishly.

"There's this thing, and Amy Gardner needed my help and--"

Toby holds up a hand. The other covers his face in exasperation.

"Don't even try to explain it, I'm just going to go sit quietly in my office and pretend I don't know you."

Will wishes he didn't know himself, too, but mostly he wishes that he didn't know Amy.

He feels a little better when he sneaks over to Josh's bullpen and sees Amy dancing around in front of Josh's office door, trying to keep him from leaving the immediate area.

"So you don't want to stay and argue this like a man?" Amy says. She's obviously going for haughty and sarcastic, but she's gone clear over the side into desperation and she's still doing the two-step to keep Josh from heading out into the hall.

"No, _Amy_ ," Josh says, "I have actual work to do and don't have time to argue over things that aren't even going to come up until the next legislative session!" He manages to get around Amy and is going out towards the hallway. Will looks heavenward, sighs, and wonders how many stupid pranks he's going to have to put up with in the next few days to make up for this insanity. He steels himself and walks briskly over to Josh.

"Hey, Josh," he says. "I have some questions about the call we were just on?"

A little part of him dies when he says it.

Josh looks at him like he's crazy.

"What is this, some kind of nut house?" he asks, his voice pitching high. "I'm pretty sure you weren't this stupid last week, Will!" he says, pointing accusingly. He rounds on Amy, "And you! You're normally not this paranoid, which, frankly, is saying something." He turns to Donna. "And I don't know what part you've had in all of this, but don't think I didn't notice the grand tour of the back offices earlier this afternoon! What the hell is going on through that hallway that you don't want me to see?"

Before any of them can stop him, he goes charging into hallway and right to the Roosevelt Room.

The blessedly empty Roosevelt Room.

Will and Amy look at each other.

"You know," Will says conversationally, turning his attention back to Josh, who is stalking away, muttering to himself under his breath, "I was pretty sure this was going to blow up in our faces."

"Yeah," Amy says. "Me too. Huh."

*

The rest of the day seems normal in comparison. Will haphazardly explains everything to Toby, even though Toby tries to ignore him about a quarter of a way into his explanation. He borrows twenty bucks off of Amy to pay back his sister and then gets the twenty bucks that CJ owes him to pay back Amy. He manages to finish writing his speech and then rewriting it after Toby tears it apart. He meets with Ed and Larry and later with Josh who seems to think he's only a little crazy now, but still avoids him.

He's exhausted by the time he's done for the day, but he's not surprised to see Amy loitering outside his office holding two bottles of beer.

"I figured we earned it," she says, handing him one when he motions her into his office.

"I think you owe me more than a beer," Will mutters. "I'm pretty sure Josh thinks I have a pretty severe learning disability."

"Josh is like that with everyone," Amy says dismissively. "He'll forget about it in a few days."

Will gives her a pointed look. "You're lying, aren't you?"

"Oh, I'm totally lying," she says. "He'll remember it until he's old and senile and probably even after that."

Will sighs. He had a feeling that would be the case.

But he can look on the bright side of things. He made a new friend today, sort of. An ally, at the very least. And when even the people he works with every day are playing pranks and hounding him because they miss his predecessor almost as much as he does, having someone to sit with at the end of the day and share a drink and a laugh is a definite win.

Plus, with her sitting in the chair, it makes it very hard for someone else to steal it.


End file.
